comiccon2009

I had dreams of the big scoops of the Iron Man 2 roundtable being up sooner, but I was stuck in the unfortunate position of being seated behind the talent and thus unable to hear any of their soft-spoken quotes. (Or I'd gone deaf from con noise which is quite possible.) But hey, the longer the wait, the sweeter the read!

First out of the gate is Iron Man himself! Allow me to have a fangirl moment as I must say that even staring at the back of Robert Downey Jr.'s head is a thrill. Plus my seat did allow me to get a good look at his awesome choice of footwear, which happened to be the most beautiful pair of lime green tennis shoes. The man is stylish, readers, and unfailingly kind with his time. Thanks to all the outlets present for asking cool questions. I wish I could credit you, but I honestly can't tell any of you apart once you're on my audio.

This year due to being a bit of an "on-call" girl (in the non prostitute sense), I spent more time than usual haunting the convention floor. I keep joking that I'm one of the few con attendees who was "old school" and spent more time shopping for comic books than haunting Hall H for film footage. (By the way, if you go and spend your time shopping, take my advice and just ship your stuff back via Fed Ex. Cheap trades stop being a good idea when you have to carry a sack of them through the airport. Ugh.)

But the culture of ComicCon is something else. I found myself snapping just a lot of random, weird photos just to try and give Cinematical readers a sense of it all. Sure, there's the ever present cosplayers and the loudness of the booth displays, but there's just something about walking down a hallway and finding sleeping Jedis, or realizing what kind of crappy food a Spartan eats in hell. I find that even when I'm in a bad mood (and I was basically in a crappy mood for five blister-filled days) the site of a Jayne hat never fails to make me smile, and even when I'm trying to get past some noisy, crowd-filled area I do stop and marvel at the sheer hugeness of it all. This year it expanded outside the con like never before, with a Heroes carnival and Flynn's Arcade set up outside of the convention center for geeks to have some free fun at.

Hopefully, the photos below give you some idea of what was there -- from the crowds (that's as close as I got to Stark Industries all week!) to the displays. Maybe they'll tempt you to give it a go some year. As I look at my torn up feet and bruised legs, I think you might just have my place in line come 2010 ... !

Check out the gallery on Cinematical

For the past month, people have asked me to put together a Real Girl's Guide to ComicCon. You probably remember that there was a bit of a stink about the LA Times' attempt at it. A lot of girls have already penned such lists though, and doing my own feels like an attempt to arrive fashionably late, hog some attention, and ignore the work of others. But as I've put together my own schedule, and wondered just what I would put on such a guide, I realized that there's no way in hell I should suggest things for female congoers, or that I would know what they'd like. I say that not as someone who sits on a lofty perch of gender, holding myself separate from my kind, but because women, just like men, have a variety of tastes and opinions.

I wrote something very similar this past March (how long ago that seems already) when Watchmen came out, and the world seemed skeptical that women would go see it. ComicCon is inspiring very similar feelings all around our great media culture, with mockery directed towards the New Moon ticketholders and skepticism directed at the rest of us. There's an ongoing belief that if a woman finds herself at ComicCon, she will be utterly lost and bored, and won't know what to do with herself. Presumably, she will follow her boyfriend or husband around all day, and possibly buy a Wonder Woman hoodie while he's buying a Punisher t-shirt. There will undoubtedly be some women like that, but there will certainly be just as many who bought tickets of their own free will and who will be lining up for Doctor Who and Avatar just like the men are.

Read the rest at Cinematical